The present invention relates to the automatic control of passenger vehicles, such as mass transit vehicles or the like, and including speed control and speed maintenance while moving along a track, precise stopping of the vehicles in relation to passenger loading and unloading stations and the operation of the vehicle doors.
In an article entitled The BARTD Train Control System published in Railway Signaling and Communications for December 1967 at pages 18 to 23, the train control system for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District is described. Other articles relating to the same train control system were published in the IEEE Transactions On Communication Technology for June 1968 at pages 396 to 374, in Railway Signaling and Communications for July 1969 at pages 27 to 38, in the Westinghouse Engineer for March 1970 at pages 51 to 54, in the Westinghouse Engineer for July 1972 at pages 98 to 103, and in the Westinghouse Engineer for September 1972 at pages 145 to 151. A general description of the train control system to be provided for the East-West line of the Sao Paulo Brazil Metro is provided in an article published in IAS 1977 Annual of the IEEE Industry Applications Society at pages 1105 to 1109.
It is known in the prior art to provide a predetermined stopping profile for controlling a passenger vehicle as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,519,805 and as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,727,046. It is known to control a vehicle in relation to a known travel distance to a stopping position as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,728,539. It is known to provide a transposed cable along a vehicle travel path and antennas onboard the vehicle to determine the travel distance of the vehicle and provide a stopping signal lower than the normal speed command signal for determining the stop position of the vehicle as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,974,992.
A general description of the microprocessors and the related peripheral devices as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 of the drawings is provided in the Intel 8080 Microcomputer Systems Users Manual currently available from Intel Corp., Santa Clara, Calif. 95051.